SL: 21%

The nation’s leading evangelical organizations are calling on the Trump administration to release detained immigrants “who do not pose a threat to public safety” amid the coronavirus pandemic, Elana Schor reports for the Associated Press in an article also picked up by Religion News Service. In a letter to DHS Acting Secretary Chad Wolf, leaders of nine evangelical Christian organizations who make up the Evangelical Immigration Table wrote that the administration should look for alternative safe accommodations in order to protect both detainees and employees from the virus: “Our concern is rooted in our Christian belief that each human life is made in the image of God and thus precious and, like you, we want to do everything possible to minimize the loss of life as a result of this pandemic.”

Several of the letter’s signatories issued their own statements: “It is unconscionable to detain so many individuals, especially when there are proven alternatives available,” said Hyepin Im, president and CEO of Faith and Community Empowerment, reports Marina Pitofsky at The Hill.

“Crowded conditions in many detention centers make it virtually impossible to implement the social distancing and hygiene recommendations of public health officials,” said Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, reports Jeffrey Martin at Newsweek.

Welcome to Wednesday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. Have a story you’d like us to include? Email me at [email protected].

ALTERNATIVES TO DETENTION – Additional support from conservative corners for the release of non-violent detainees comes from Jonathan Haggerty of the R Street Institute: Haggerty joined my colleague Larry Benenson, the Forum’s assistant VP of policy and advocacy, to author an op-ed for USA Today that makes the case that the Trump administration should immediately release all U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees who do not have serious criminal convictions and shift toward alternatives to detention to slow the spread of COVID-19. Many current detainees have family in the U.S. and can quickly find ways to shelter in place, they write. And alternatives to detention such as tracking devices and case management have been proven effective in ensuring migrants attend court hearings. “By shifting away from detention, the administration would protect tens of thousands of migrants, including children and at-risk individuals … It would protect the health of workers at these facilities, as well as their families. And it would protect the American public by reducing the spread of the disease outside detention center walls.”

21% – The economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic is upending the finances of not only immigrants living in America but also their families back home who rely on them for financial assistance, report Alejandro Lazo and Robbie Whelan at The Wall Street Journal. “In countries such as Mexico, where hundreds of thousands of families depend on remittances sent by relatives in the U.S. to pay for food, housing and other necessities, America’s economic crisis is taking a toll.” In 2019, workers around the world — most of them living in the U.S.— sent an estimated $38.6 billion in remittance payments (or about 3% of Mexico’s total GDP) home to Mexico, according to the World Bank. The bank added that those remittances could contract by as much as 21% between 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.

DEPORTATION FLIGHTS – The U.S. has continued to send international flights deporting migrants from the country despite a high risk of spreading coronavirus globally, reports Monica Campbell with PRI’s The World. The flights are putting countries ill-equipped to combat the disease at risk: “We are a poor country,” said Haiti’s ambassador to the U.S., Hervé Denis, in an interview. “We have the fears that this is [a] possibility that could add to the spread of the virus.” Still, the Trump administration says it will threaten visa sanctions against countries that refuse to accept deportees. In related news, ABC News’s Conor Finnegan reports that Guatemala’s health minister, Hugo Monroy, “suggested Tuesday that a recent spike in cases was because of deportations from the U.S.” According to Monroy, 75% of deportees on one recent flight from the U.S. later tested positive for COVID-19.


H-1B UPDATE – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is disputing claims that it wrongly denied around 900 H-1B visa registrations, which arose after attorneys flagged that many foreign-born professionals had been denied a chance at a petition, writes Stuart Anderson, executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy, for Forbes. USCIS is blaming applicants and employers for submitting duplicate applications, but immigration attorneys claim it's highly improbable that the more than 900 applications rejected were duplicates, and instead believe the error is due to flaws in USCIS’s new system. “The evidence indicates up to 900 foreign-born professionals were denied an opportunity to be selected in the H-1B lottery because the system USCIS created has problems – problems that USCIS will not concede exist,” Anderson writes.

Thanks for reading and stay healthy,

Ali